This invention, due to the work of Paul BORNERT relates in the first place to a method of stoving articles, inter alia freshly painted articles introduced into a stove and eventually being submitted to other preceding or following treatments in one or more enclosures, and in which combustion is used to eliminate a substantial proportion of the polluting and solvent-charged products given off by the articles during stoving and entrained by the ventilating air which is evacuated from the stove. When articles are stoved, more particularly freshly painted articles, the articles of course give off pulluting solvent-charged products whose carbon content exceeds the content permitted by the Law in many countries. Moreover, these products smell bad. This is why there has been the intention of eliminating by combustion a substantial proportion of the polluting products entrained by the ventilation air which is evacuated from the stove.
For instance, French Patent No. 1 587 679 of Aug. 22, 1968 discloses how to destroy the polluting products by using the ventilation air leaving the stove and containing such products, as the combustion-aiding air of the stove burners and/or by combustion in a heating device of the stove. It is also known to destroy the polluting products in a combustion chamber in which they are burnt, the air thus purified being then ejected to atmosphere; however, in this way considerable amount of heat is lost.
Moreover, the thermal balance sheet of a conventional stove is very poor. For instance, with a stove having a very high weight of production, intended, for instance, for firing the paint on motorcar bodywork, a heat power 20 to 30 times greater than the heat power needed for firing the paint is required. This poor thermal balance sheet is due to losses at the ends of the stove (inlet and discharge of the bodywork), to the storage of heat by the painted bodywork, and more particularly to losses due to ventilation, since the ventilation of stoves, to evacuate the polluting products given off and limit the risk of explosion, is very intense and therefore robs the stoves of a great deal of heat.